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<title>XmlProperty Task</title>
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<body>

<h2 id="xmlproperty">XmlProperty</h2>
<h3>Description</h3>
<p>Loads property values from a well-formed xml file. There are no other restrictions than
"well-formed". You can choose the layout you want. For example this XML property file:</p>
<pre>
  &lt;root&gt;
    &lt;properties&gt;
      &lt;foo&gt;bar&lt;/foo&gt;
    &lt;/properties&gt;
  &lt;/root&gt;</pre>
<p>is roughly equivalent to this Java property file:</p>
<pre>root.properties.foo = bar</pre>

<p>By default, this load does <em>no</em> processing of the input.  In particular, unlike
the <a href="property.html">Property task</a>, property references (i.e., <samp>${foo}</samp>) are
not resolved.</p>
<h3 id="semanticAttributes">Semantic attributes</h3>
<p>Input processing can be enabled by using the <var>semanticAttributes</var> attribute.  If this
attribute is set to <q>true</q> (its default is <q>false</q>), the following processing occurs as
the input XML file is loaded:/p>
<ul>
  <li>Property references are resolved.</li>
  <li>The following attributes are treated differently:
    <ul>
      <li><var>id</var>: The property is associated with the given id value.</li>
      <li><var>location</var>: The property is treated as a file location</li>
      <li><var>refid</var>: The property is set to the value of the referenced property.</li>
      <li><var>value</var>: The property is set to the value indicated.</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li><a href="../using.html#path">path-like structures</a> can be defined by use of the following
    attributes:
    <ul>
      <li><var>pathid</var>: The given <var>id</var> is used to identify a path.  The nested XML tag
        name is ignored.  Child elements can be used (XML tag names are ignored) to identify
        elements of the path.</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>
<p>For example, with semantic attribute processing enabled, this XML property file:</p>
<pre>
&lt;root&gt;
  &lt;properties&gt;
    &lt;foo location="bar"/&gt;
    &lt;quux&gt;${root.properties.foo}&lt;/quux&gt;
  &lt;/properties&gt;
&lt;/root&gt;</pre>
<p>is roughly equivalent to the following fragments in a <samp>build.xml</samp> file:</p>
<pre>
&lt;property name="root.properties.foo" location="bar"/&gt;
&lt;property name="root.properties.quux" value="${root.properties.foo}"/&gt;</pre>

<h3>Parameters</h3>
<table class="attr">
  <tr>
    <th scope="col">Attribute</th>
    <th scope="col">Description</th>
    <th scope="col">Required</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>file</td>
    <td>The XML file to parse.</td>
    <td>Yes, or a nested resource collection</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>prefix</td>
    <td>The prefix to prepend to each property.</td>
    <td>No</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>keepRoot</td>
    <td>Keep the XML root tag as the first value in the property name.</td>
    <td>No; default is <q>true</q></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>validate</td>
    <td>Validate the input file (e.g. by a DTD). Otherwise the XML must only be well-formed.</td>
    <td>No; default is <q>false</q></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>collapseAttributes</td>
    <td>Treat attributes as nested elements.</td>
    <td>No; default is <q>false</q></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>semanticAttributes</td>
    <td>Enable special handling of certain attribute names.  See
      the <a href="#semanticAttributes">Semantic Attributes</a> section for more information.</td>
    <td>No; default is <q>false</q></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>includeSemanticAttribute</td>
    <td>Include the semantic attribute name as part of the property name.  Ignored
      if <var>semanticAttributes</var> is not set to <q>true</q>.  See
      the <a href="#semanticAttributes">Semantic Attributes</a> section for more information.</td>
    <td>No; default is <q>false</q></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>rootDirectory</td>
    <td>The directory to use for resolving file references. Ignored if <var>semanticAttributes</var>
      is not set to <q>true</q>.</td>
    <td>No; default is <var>basedir</var></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>delimiter</td>
    <td>Delimiter for splitting multiple values.<br/><em>since Apache Ant 1.7.1</em></td>
    <td>No; defaults to <q>,</q> (comma)</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<h3 id="nested">Parameters specified as nested elements</h3>
<h4>xmlcatalog</h4>
<p>The <a href="../Types/xmlcatalog.html"><code>&lt;xmlcatalog&gt;</code></a> element is used to
perform entity resolution.</p>

<h4>any <a href="../Types/resources.html">resource</a> or single element resource collection</h4>

<p>The specified resource will be used as input.</p>

<h3 id="examples">Examples</h3>

<h4>Non-semantic attributes</h4>

<p>Here is an example XML file that does not have any semantic attributes.</p>

<pre>
&lt;root-tag myattr="true"&gt;
  &lt;inner-tag someattr="val"&gt;Text&lt;/inner-tag&gt;
  &lt;a2&gt;&lt;a3&gt;&lt;a4&gt;false&lt;/a4&gt;&lt;/a3&gt;&lt;/a2&gt;
&lt;/root-tag&gt;</pre>

<h5>default loading</h5>
<p>This entry in a build file:</p>
<pre>&lt;xmlproperty file="somefile.xml"/&gt;</pre>
<p>is equivalent to the following properties:</p>
<pre>
root-tag(myattr)=true
root-tag.inner-tag=Text
root-tag.inner-tag(someattr)=val
root-tag.a2.a3.a4=false</pre>

<h5><var>collapseAttributes</var>=<q>false</q></h5>
<p>This entry in a build file:</p>
<pre>&lt;xmlproperty file="somefile.xml" collapseAttributes="true"/&gt;</pre>
<p>is equivalent to the following properties:</p>
<pre>
root-tag.myattr=true
root-tag.inner-tag=Text
root-tag.inner-tag.someatt=val
root-tag.a2.a3.a4=false</pre>

<h5><var>keepRoot</var>=<q>false</q></h5>
<p>This entry in a build file:</p>
<pre>&lt;xmlproperty file="somefile.xml" keepRoot="false"/&gt;</pre>
<p>is equivalent to the following properties:</p>
<pre>
inner-tag=Text
inner-tag(someattr)=val
a2.a3.a4=false</pre>

<h4>Semantic attributes</h4>

<p>Here is an example XML file that has semantic attributes.</p>
<pre>
&lt;root-tag&gt;
  &lt;version value="0.0.1"/&gt;
  &lt;build folder="build"&gt;
    &lt;classes id="build.classes" location="${build.folder}/classes"/&gt;
    &lt;reference refid="build.classes"/&gt;
  &lt;/build&gt;
  &lt;compile&gt;
    &lt;classpath pathid="compile.classpath"&gt;
      &lt;pathelement location="${build.classes}"/&gt;
    &lt;/classpath&gt;
  &lt;/compile&gt;
  &lt;run-time&gt;
    &lt;jars&gt;*.jar&lt;/jars&gt;
    &lt;classpath pathid="run-time.classpath"&gt;
      &lt;path refid="compile.classpath"/&gt;
      &lt;pathelement path="${run-time.jars}"/&gt;
    &lt;/classpath&gt;
  &lt;/run-time&gt;
&lt;/root-tag&gt;</pre>

<h5>default loading (<var>semanticAttributes</var>=<q>true</q>)</h5>
<p>This entry in a build file:</p>
<pre>
&lt;xmlproperty file="somefile.xml" keepRoot="false"
             semanticAttributes="true"/&gt;</pre>
<p>is equivalent to the following entries in a build file:</p>
<pre>
&lt;property name="version" value="0.0.1"/&gt;
&lt;property name="build.folder" value="build"/&gt;
&lt;property name="build.classes" location="${build.folder}/classes" id="build.classes"/&gt;
&lt;property name="build.reference" refid="build.classes"/&gt;

&lt;property name="run-time.jars" value="*.jar"/&gt;

&lt;path id="compile.classpath"&gt;
  &lt;pathelement location="${build.classes}"/&gt;
&lt;/path&gt;

&lt;path id="run-time.classpath"&gt;
  &lt;path refid="compile.classpath"/&gt;
  &lt;pathelement path="${run-time.jars}"/&gt;
&lt;/path&gt;</pre>

<h5><var>includeSemanticAttribute</var>=<q>true</q></h5>
<p>This entry in a build file:</p>
<pre>
&lt;xmlproperty file="somefile.xml"
             semanticAttributes="true" keepRoot="false"
             includeSemanticAttribute="true"/&gt;</pre>
<p>is equivalent to the following entries in a build file:</p>
<pre>
&lt;property name="version.value" value="0.0.1"/&gt;
&lt;property name="build.folder" value="build"/&gt;
&lt;property name="build.classes.location" location="${build.folder}/classes"/&gt;
&lt;property name="build.reference.refid" refid="build.classes"/&gt;

&lt;property name="run-time.jars" value="*.jar"/&gt;

&lt;path id="compile.classpath"&gt;
  &lt;pathelement location="${build.classes}"/&gt;
&lt;/path&gt;

&lt;path id="run-time.classpath"&gt;
  &lt;path refid="compile.classpath"/&gt;
  &lt;pathelement path="${run-time.jars}"/&gt;
&lt;/path&gt;</pre>

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